Sheppard was initially a contestant on in 2011. He was a member of the Ometepe Tribe and had a then-record 17 votes cast against him throughout the season. He was unable to pull away with the victory however, receiving only a single vote at the final tribal council He told TV Guide that he played with hope and suspected that he would get the jury vote from almost everybody. Many jurors have admitted in their post-game interviews that they would have likely voted for Phillip to win had he admitted his behavior and actions were all a part of a strategy to get taken to the end by Rob. Sheppard insisted throughout the show that he was a former federal agent, but fellow participants such as former NFL player Steve Wright doubted Sheppard's claims. At the finale, Jeff Probst spoke to a woman in the audience who claimed to have known Sheppard from her federal agent training.
''Caramoan''
Sheppard was also a cast member on ', in 2013. The theme for this season was ten new contestants and ten returning contestants facing off for the million dollar prize, a format previously used during '. Being a returning player, Sheppard was cast as a ‘Favorite’ and was placed on the Bikal tribe. He was voted out on Day 28, and became the second member of the jury. At the first Tribal Council he claimed that he didn't, per se, mispronounce Francesca Hogi's first name during Redemption Island, instead he chose to do so on purpose rather than using expletives. He was one of six players who voted out Hogi, making her the first ever contestant on an American reality competition show to be voted out first in two different seasons. After being voted out, Hogi told Zap2it that Sheppard "is still a crazy person" stating that she doesn't "know where he came from or how he functions in the world. It's fascinating, actually." By the end of the second episode, he had already begun putting into place his "BR rules" based on the game play of ' winner Rob Mariano and recruited a new Stealth R Us with code names for members of his alliance. However, Stealth R Us was one of a number of things that fellow contestant Brandon Hantz claimed to be frustrated about, and Hantz had the biggest meltdown in the show's history after a disagreement with Sheppard. Because of the conflict, an impromptu tribal council was held at the immunity challenge. Hantz voted against Sheppard, but Sheppard and the rest of the tribe voted Hantz out of the game. The tribes were re-arranged a day later with castaways cracking eggs filled with either orange or purple paint. Sheppard's egg had purple paint so he remained on the Bikal Tribe. He had already put into effect "Operation Thunder Dome", which was a plan to eliminate contestant Corinne Kaplan. His plan came through when Kaplan was voted out at the merged tribe's first Tribal Council. He then adopted season "Fan" Sherri Biethman into Stealth R Us. Eventually, he was so confident in his strategy, he chose not to compete in one immunity challenge, claiming it to be because of a childhood incident. In the Tribal Council immediately following, he was voted out when Malcolm Freberg, Eddie Fox, and Reynold Toepfer made Survivor history by combining two hidden immunity idols with a challenge win to make all members of their alliance immune and have all of the votes cast against them negated. At the end of the game, Sheppard voted for John Cochran to be the Sole Survivor, a unanimous decision by the jury. After being voted out of ', he appeared on Survivor Live.
Literature
Sheppard is the inspiration for, and persona in, the 2013 novel The Specialist: The Costa Rica Job, written in collaboration with his brother, Charles P. Sheppard, Author. The book became available on February 12, 2013, and features a James Bond-like former federal agent working a job in Costa Rica. Phillip Sheppard himself has also written a sci-fi novel, entitled The Legend of Things Past, which became available in 2015.
